Monday, May 4, 2009

***Yesterday, Keith Olbermann and Michael Musto took five minutes out of their busy schedules to skewer anti-gay-marriage Miss California Carrie Prejean after the “news” broke that the Miss California Organization had paid for Prejean’s breast implants. Olbermann and Musto choose to shame Prejean by tearing into her body—riffing on boobs as “performance enhancers,” saying the Miss California Organization’s comments “added saline to the wound,” and comparing her breasts to basketballs.

Why is the commentary on Prejean’s anti-gay commentary so devoid of the context of the Beauty Pageant?

So, Carrie Prejean is a homophobe. Is that any surprise, seeing that she’s a product of a pageant machine which proudly parades its sexism in front of television screens across America? And now, the mainstream media is shaming Prejean for her pageant-consistent beliefs because she did something that would—what—help her win a beauty pageant?

The Miss California Organization leaking the news of Prejean’s boob job is not sweet revenge for her intolerant comments. The organization paying for her fake breasts only reiterates the fact that pageant organizers deal in and profit from sexism, not public service. Meanwhile, they act completely sanctimonious when one of their fembot minions voices another shameful view? What a clusterfuck.

Try to think of a situation where a man is forced to parade his near-naked body in front of celebrity judges and millions of television viewers for an hour, and then speak for about ten seconds on public policy. It doesn’t happen. Everyone knows those women weren’t chosen for their policy positions, and that they essentially have no business commenting on political issues. And yet, the Q&A section remains. Why? To produce Youtube videos of pretty girls stumbling over “thinky” questions.

Perhaps the Prejean blowup will move pageant organizers to be more careful about coaching their representatives on the Q&A. But who cares? It’s still a fucking beauty pageant.***